Chancellor Joel Klein is looking at having superintendents oversee all schools from kindergarten through 12th grade by merging separate community and high-school administrative offices, sources said yesterday.

“That’s been discussed,” said one official involved in the deliberations. “It would create a more seamless K-12 system.”

A more unified and accountable school system is what Mayor Bloomberg called for when he campaigned for office.

Klein is now conducting a sweeping review of the school system, which he’s dubbed “Children First.”

“As part of ‘Children First,’ we are looking at a wide range of options that will help to simplify the needs of our students,” said Klein spokesman David Chai.

The city Department of Education has a total of 40 superintendents overseeing 1.1 million children. Of those, 33 are community district chiefs that run elementary and middle schools, six are high-school superintendents and another manages special-education schools for students with disabilities.

That’s roughly one superintendent for every 27,500 students.

By comparison, the Los Angeles school system has 11 “area” districts overseeing all schools from K to 12, with 736,000 students in 677 schools.

That’s one superintendent for every 66,909 students.

“It’s a good idea to have unified school districts. Somebody needs to be responsible for all the schools instead of pointing fingers,” said former Schools Chancellor Ramon Cortines, who also headed L.A.’s school system.

For example, he said high-school officials often complain that the middle-school students come into high school ill-prepared, and community school districts complain high schools don’t pay attention to what’s going on in the lower-grades schools.

The only reason the separate high-school and elementary-school divisions exist is the 1969 law that established community school districts.

As part of the bargain, separate high-school superintendencies were centralized under the chancellor. But that system was deemed a disaster by education experts.

As a result, the state Legislature and Gov. Pataki approved a law earlier this year giving the mayor and his handpicked chancellor direct responsibility for education and phased out community school boards.

Klein already has a model to point to in the city school system. District 2 Superintendent Shelly Harwayne runs six high schools, as well as elementary and middle schools, in her Manhattan district.